about

Clotheslines Press is a small press initiative dedicated to exploring the intersections of fashion, labour, and feminism through critical publishing practices. Inspired by the evocative imagery and symbolism of clotheslines—both as a site of women’s invisible labour and as a powerful metaphor for connection and resistance—the press seeks to unravel the threads of history, politics, and culture that shape our understanding of fashion and everyday life.

The name Clotheslines Press pays homage to Roberta Cantow’s seminal 1981 documentary Clotheslines, which illuminated the often-overlooked domestic labour of women, particularly the act of hanging laundry. Like the clotheslines that crisscross neighbourhoods, the press aims to connect disparate yet interconnected topics: the invisibilised history of women’s reproductive labour, the political implications of fashion as a site of resistance, and the ways in which everyday practices can challenge dominant power structures. Just as clotheslines intersect the urban and rural landscapes, Clotheslines Press intersects critical fashion practice with feminist and critical theory, labour studies, and visual culture.

Clotheslines have long been more than just functional; they are political. Banned in affluent U.S. suburbs and UK estates for supposedly lowering property values, they’ve also been tools of defiance; like in Myanmar, where protesters hung longyi to blind surveillance cameras. These tensions—between control and resistance, aesthetics and utility—mirror Clotheslines Press’s mission: exposing hidden histories while weaving new narratives of (collective) action. The clothesline, once deemed “unsightly,” becomes a radical act of visibility.

Through publications, garments and other published materials, Clotheslines Press seeks to amplify the voices of critical practitioners who interrogate the gendered, racialised, and classed dimensions of fashion and labour. By centring feminist approaches, the press not only critiques the systems that devalue women’s work but also celebrates the creativity and resilience embedded in everyday acts of care and resistance. Like a clothesline strung between two points, Clotheslines Press bridges the personal and the political, the past and the present, theory and practice, creating a space where critical ideas can hang out to dry.